


rooms that I was left in, and rooms that I've since left

by transheroine



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, F/M, Frotting, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Smut, Sword Fighting, Trans Female Character, characters taking archaic understandings of gender for granted, kabedon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 07:57:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21071534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transheroine/pseuds/transheroine
Summary: After a pause, Dimitri puts on a smile - a courteous gesture. Whatever his thoughts, Dimitri is not close-minded, nor stubborn. It is understood that a prince might choose to live a life ignorant to the realities of this world, but Dimitri is not a man of that kind. “I appreciate you having me, professor. I truly hope that we may do this again some time.”a dimileth fic with trans!Byleth





	rooms that I was left in, and rooms that I've since left

Nothing in the monastery is as it was. Even as reconstruction continues, the buildings raised from the ruins of the old are not the halls Byleth taught within, argued tactics within, or cooked and ate within those months five years ago. She is relieved to see some state of normalcy return to this place, truly - but it is not the same.

As Byleth wanders from the monastery courtyard into and through its halls, a sound begins to ring within earshot: the sharp hiss of steel - drawn against stone, once, twice, continuing on as Byleth begins to draw towards it.

Through the halls, she finds a mound of ink-black fur hovering over a grinding stone in one of the rooms the knights have been using for storage. Sparks fly from the shadow as it continues to draw steel over the stone, tirelessly working.

Dimitri.

How long has it been since Byleth has had the chance to simply observe her student work? It was her job, as professor, to keep track of her class and what each individual spent their time on, took interest in, or shirked in favor of some other task - she recalls Dimitri’s own strengths and weaknesses like one would recall paths through a forest.

For Byleth, it had been merely weeks. Time that was normally spent managing her class had been diverted to preparing for Garreg Mach’s defense. All her students were in a dark place, then, perhaps Dimitri most of all. But for him, and the rest of them, it had been far longer.

The vastness of it - the time that had been taken from her, that could not be devoted to her pupils, that Dimitri had to spend suffering and stewing in hatred alone - aches like an open wound. Byleth wishes like nothing else to reach out for a time when she could still change things.

The hissing suddenly stops. “Why are you here?” barks Dimitri. His head does not turn to face her.

“I…” Having been caught, Byleth hurries for an answer. “I was merely watching. I wished to see how you were doing.”

Dimitri returns to sharpening his blade. “Go away. Watch someone else,” he says.

“Dimitri…” Byleth sighs. Her voice struggles to pierce the sound of the grinding stone. “We haven’t spoken properly since I returned. You are no longer my pupil, however, I-”

“No, I am indeed not!” Dimitri snarls, twisting towards her. The clinking and shuddering of armor fills the air as he rises to his feet. “Do not think I am the child who you taught five years ago. That boy is dead! The corpse before you has no place in whatever classroom you believe lingers here.”

Byleth shudders. She expects these outbursts from him, but she is still hurt by them - not by the flashing of teeth, but by knowing he feels that this is all that there is for him.

“You… are right,” she frowns. “I am not your professor. And I did not come here to lecture you. That isn’t my place.”

Dimitri’s lips pull into a tight line.

“So… I ask you, not as your teacher, but… as your friend,” Byleth continues, swallowing thickly, “Are you up for a round of sparring?”

Dimitri’s eye opens wide wide. “What?”

“Train with me, Dimitri.” Byleth tilts her head. “Is that an unreasonable request?”

As immediate as blood from a wound, Dimitri is overcome with fury. His lip curls and his brows contort - but, just as quickly, his face falls, and his expression is sapped of all tension.

“… For the past five years, I have drawn my blade only with the intent to kill.” His black gauntlet tightens its grip on his sword. “Day by day, I discarded what I learned from my youth. Sword fighting is no longer a skill I possess, but instinct. I know nothing of restraint, and so sparring is foreign to me. You would have better luck asking for a duel from a rabid dog.”

A pause. He looks away. “Besides… I was never good at controlling my strength.”

Byleth stares at him. Slowly, her eyes fall to the hilt of Dimitri’s sword, and then to that sword’s pristine edge.

“… It takes finesse to sharpen a blade properly,” she simply states.

Dimitri looks back at her. His dark-ringed eye narrows.

“I won’t be using a toy sword,” he tells her. “Steel against steel. Does your faith extend that far, Professor?”

The look on his face tells Byleth that it shouldn’t. He wills her to deny him, and to accept him as something violently un-human.

“It does,” she answers.

Dimitri looks displeased, but it’s a face Byleth prefers to what she’s seen from him these past few weeks. She draws her blade from its sheath.

Frowning, Dimitri clicks his teeth. “Very well,” he says, and kicks the grinding stone behind him to the side with a thud. Byleth’s eyes track the sword in his hand as it is lifted and its point directed at her.

This time, when he looks at her, Byleth knows that it is her that he sees, fully. Not merely an obstacle, or a phantom of the past. It comes as a relief. Familiar isn’t how she’d describe it, nor friendly, but she appreciates it all the same.

She takes a step towards him, and immediately Dimitri charges. Their blades clash - Byleth has no choice but to deflect and dodge out of the arc of his swing. Dimitri pursues with a thrust, and again Byleth barely escapes by meeting it with a quick swipe of her own as she’s pushed back.

Already she’s been put on the defensive, but Byleth isn’t deterred. She nearly catches Dimitri with a thrust, giving her a chance to regain her footing. Dimitri’s pursuit is ruthless, but he leaves openings - openings she might have been able to end a duel with when he was a teenager, but she knows not to risk overextending herself against the man before her now.

Gasps, grunts, and the clashing of steel fill the air. Byleth catches glimpses of Dimitri’s face, flashes of piercing blue and the grit of his teeth. Dust is scattered as they move about the unkempt room, feet occasionally catching on stray swords or scraps of wood.

“Professor,” Byleth hears Dimitri grind out. It’s followed by a heavy swing, which Byleth dodges and meets with a defensive jab. “Ha… I remember this. You haven’t changed at all.”

Dimitri deflects the jab with a swipe of his arm, and continues towards her with a low swing - poorly timed. Byleth blocks and follows the swing upward, nearly catching his chest as he’s forced to dodge backwards.

“Does it not haunt you as well?” He continues, deflecting one of Byleth’s swings. “That you couldn’t stop it. That—” a ragged inhale — “you weren’t enough?”

Byleth stares at him with wide eyes, catching the turn of his lips but not for long enough to tell whether he smiles or frowns. His arms reach back to swing down on her from overhead. Byleth braces her hand on the flat of her blade and blocks. A heavy clang rings out throughout the room as she catches the blow, and she cries out as pain blossoms through her cracked wrist.

Before she realizes what’s happened, Byleth is on her back and her lungs are grasping desperately at nothing. Through bleary eyes she sees Dimitri rear back for another swing, and she desperately pushes herself to dodge out of the way.

She hears the sword meet the ground with a dull thud. It seems for a moment Byleth might manage to get herself to her feet, but she’s quickly pinned to the ground by Dimitri’s sabaton. The weight of his foot bites into her chest. Her eyes trail upward to find his blade poised at her neck, and upward still to see Dimitri’s face surrounded by a cascade of ragged hair.

Byleth’s heart hammers in her chest. The blade’s tip bites into flesh just south of her jaw, and she suddenly finds catching her breath much more difficult.

Dimitri’s gaze is heavy upon her. “I…” Redness seeps into discolored folds of his eye. For once, his face is contorted into something other than indignation or rage.

His lips move, but no words come out, as if the air were too thick with tension to carry his voice. When he does finally speak, it is to say: “Byleth.”

Byleth places a hand on the edge of his sword, gently moving it away from her throat. “You won, Dimitri. Good job.” She takes a deep breath and exhales. “… You’ve grown.”

Air hisses through his teeth. “Gah,” Dimitri breathes, and brings a hand to his face to wipe at his eye. He staggers away from her, finally lifting his boot from her chest.

A moment is taken for Byleth to regain her breath before she tries to stand up. Putting her weight on her left arm makes her wince with pain, and she quickly adjusts.

“You’re hurt,” says Dimitri.

Byleth gets on her feet. Even as Dimitri stands with a slouch and his head bowed, he still towers over here - at least, it seems that way in the moment. She’s suddenly very aware of how close he is.

“… Haha. Concerned, are you?” Byleth finds herself smiling, oddly, despite the pain. “It’s no cause for worry, it’ll surely heal. I suppose this is a good reminder - I’ll have to train harder if I wish to keep up with you.”

Dimitri stares. A long pause follows, Dimitri seemingly stuck in thought. It passes as he says: “I never got a notch on you, back then. Not once.”

Byleth tilts her head.

Instead of elaborating, Dimitri’s gauntlet reaches for Byleth’s arm - grabbing her by her forearm, not her wrist - and lifts her hand to his face. The dagger-like claws of his arm carefully pick at the bindings of her glove until it unhooks and falls away.

Scars - old, new, and very old - mar the calloused skin of her hand, which Dimitri lays across the leather under-belly of his steel-clad glove. It’s not something she feels particularly insecure about - it was to be expected of someone in her trade, after all. However, a word comes to mind seeking to describe it.

“Unwomanly, isn’t it?”

Dimitri’s lips press into a firm line. “Fragile,” he states. “Your wrist is swollen.”

“Oh. So it is.”

He sweeps his thumb gently over her palm. “Manuela has returned, hasn’t she?”

Ah. It takes Byleth a moment to recall. “She has.”

Dimitri lets her hand fall from his grasp and turns on his heel. “See her. I am finished here,” he throws back at her as he leaves.

Byleth watches him go.

—————

_Dimitri’s chuckle rings in Byleth’s ears. “Ah… You wouldn’t think it, but marriage is quite a droll matter for some, I suppose.” He hides a mirthful grin behind a sip of his tea._

_“It seems that way,” Byleth agrees. “I’ve been listening to the class speak of marriage proposals and the like with dread for a while now.”_

_Dimitri nods, his smile falling to a quirk of his lips. “It pains me to hear it, but… that is the unfortunate truth for us nobles. There are many who find happiness in it, but marriage is ultimately our duty. It comes for us all, eventually.”_

_“I have few prospects in that regard,” Byleth says. Her fingers wrap around her teacup. “No man concerning himself with his family name would take me, as I cannot provide an heir.”_

_Dimitri’s brows rise. “Cannot provide… then, you are…?”_

_’Infertile’, Byleth knows Dimitri means to say. Normally, she would let him believe so and leave the issue at that. Dimitri would never pry, being as polite as he is, and the topic would concern neither of them ever again._

_Instead, Byleth shakes her head. “Though I have grown to be the woman before you, one might say… that the goddess delivered my father a son.” She does not avert her eyes as she speaks. “Jeralt didn’t take issue with it. A son or a daughter, it didn’t matter - we were mercenaries.”_

_For a moment, Dimitri merely stares - Byleth does not probe him for a reply. Her sort was not unheard of; there have been many who have done what she has, and there are many ways of achieving it. She imagines, however, that the relatively sheltered life of the noble class has not exposed Dimitri to any like her in the flesh._

_“I… see,” he finally says. “I believe I understand.”_

_Byleth nods. She sips her tea._

_“Yet - Professor,” Dimitri continues, “It’s quite apparent that you are a very accomplished woman. I imagine some may judge you as irregular, but… I simply do not see why any man would not be fortunate to have you.”_

_Ah. Insistent. Dimitri often gets like this with his friends when he believes they are unfair to themselves. It is a good attitude for a leader to have, Byleth believes, even if she knows in this case that he is wrong._

_“Dimitri…” Byleth sighs. “As I have gotten to know my students in these past few months, I have become familiar with noble life, and the ways in which it asks for pragmatism. If a child may be disowned due to something as out of our control as a lack of crest, what family would knowingly take on a woman who cannot produce a child to begin with?”_

_The question is rhetorical, but Dimitri’s face looks for moment as if he has an answer to it. Whatever he has in mind, Byleth promptly snubs it. “You, of all people, should know this.”_

_His face falls. “I… ah. I do not know what to say.” His eyes remain on her face, but they do not quite meet her eyes. “Forgive me, Professor, I have spoken out of turn. Please know that I did not mean any offense by my words.”_

_Byleth smiles. “I don’t find my life lacking, you know. Why Lady Rhea gave me the opportunity to serve as your professor here is a mystery to me, but I feel like it is a blessing of it’s own. I am happy with that.” She finishes the remainder of her tea. “Thank you for joining me, Dimitri.”_

_After a pause, Dimitri puts on a smile of his own - a courteous gesture. Whatever his thoughts, Dimitri is not close-minded, nor stubborn. It is understood that a prince might choose to live a life ignorant to the bitter realities of this world, but Dimitri is not a man of that kind. “I appreciate you having me, professor. I truly hope that we may do this again some time.”_

———

A small flame sparks from Byleth fingertips, which she then holds to the lamp at her bedside. A warm light blooms and illuminates her bedroom.

She considers herself retired for the night, but truthfully, she is far too restless to hope for sleep.

Fortunately, there is work that can be done from the confines of her room. Reaching for one of her drawers - with her good hand, as she’s neglected a visit to the infirmary - she pulls out a map of Fódlan, along with several helpful geographic guides she picked up at the library several days prior. Going over once more the lay of the land will surely be helpful in preparing for the days ahead.

As well as distracting her from less helpful thoughts.

Byleth’s studying passes a nail’s length of candlelight into the night, gleaming indispensable insight as well as rendering her no more ready to close her eyes, before she hears a heavy wrapping on the oak of her bedroom door.

A visitor at this hour? Byleth’s seat scrapes against the floor as she pushes herself away from her desk. Mindfully, she grabs her sword on the way to the door, carefully hiding it out of view.

What she sees upon opening the way causes her to blink. “Dimitri?”

Indeed, the man in armor stands just outside the frame of her door, peering down at her. Moonlight casts a soft glow on his unkempt bed of hair, appearing to her in silvery hue.

“Professor,” his voice rumbles.

Byleth assumes that he intends to then state his purpose, but rather he instead stands there, silently, and somewhat awkwardly.

“Would you like to step inside, Dimitri?” Byleth offers. It was a bit late for a man to be visiting a woman’s quarters - quite a bit late, in fact - but she will allow it.

He nods. “I would.” _Clink, clink, clink_ his armor goes as it carries him through the threshold. She feels somewhat naked next to him, having withdrawn from her uniform herself, and she idly wonders if he ever strips himself of his plate.

Byleth sets her blade to the side. “Is there something you wish to discuss?”

So far Dimitri has avoided looking her in the eye, instead resting either elsewhere on her face or beside her head. A familiar tactic of his. Now, though, he meets her gaze.

It’s almost too much. “Do you enjoy trudging through the past, Professor?” he speaks. “Of days gone by. Old joys… friends no longer present.”

Byleth tenses. He watches her closely, eye narrowed, but his face betrays the vulnerability that lies behind his question.

“I…” Byleth starts, before quickly rearranging the words she means to say. It hurts to think that her days at the officer’s academy are now behind her, but it is a good past to remember. After having lived the scarce life of a mercenary for so many years prior, Byleth knows to treasure those memories.

“Not always. Often not. But I do not avoid it,” she says. “My memories are part of me, good or bad. And they are not always bad.”

“I would never forget them,” Dimitri says, bitterly. “I carry them with me, always. Like a ball and chain, and justly so. Always reminding me of my place.”

Byleth frowns. “You mentioned old joys. Are they not a source of comfort?”

Dimitri grits his teeth. “Recalling the feeling of warmth serves only to make the present cold more severe,” he answers. “And I do not deserve comfort. A wretch like me has no right to wish for a return to that place.” He sucks in a breath. “I am not worthy of wishes.”

Byleth’s stomach churns.

“Dimitri…” She steps forward.

Something in Dimitri’s face shifts.

“So… it is wrong that I should ever look back on those times merrily,” he says, baring his teeth in frustration. “Shameful. Revolting. I…” He claws at his hair. “Yet you’ve reminded me of something I left behind. It is something too precious to be held in hands dirtied like mine! Even then, I… it was wrong of me to…”

Byleth reaches for his hand. “You are not beneath joy,” she tells him. “They are pleasant memories?”

“Disgusting memories,” Dimitri hisses.

The floor creaks under his shifting weight as he takes a step towards her. Rather than be held, his gauntlets rise, and suddenly Byleth feels the smothered warmth of his hands curling around the sides of her face.

Her breath stills. Dimitri’s face hovers over her own, closer than he’s ever been. She sees things in him in detail she’s managed to catch only in what now feels like glimpses before; his long, fine lashes, the soft shape of his lips - marked by the gnawing of teeth - the curve of his cheek, and the hard line of his jaw.

“I… enjoyed our time together. You meant a great deal to me. Anything you asked of me, I would have done it,” Dimitri manages to get out. His deep voice echoes within Byleth’s ears. “But I wanted things from you that were not mine to want.”

Byleth’s head swims and her heart pounds. “… Ah,” is all she says.

Dimitri trembles. All at once, Byleth is pushed and her back lands flat against the bed behind her. She hears a creak as Dimitri’s arms plant at either side her head, and suddenly his massive body fills her vision.

The heavy breath shuddering through through Dimitri’s parted lips are felt on Byleth’s face. His cheeks have taken on a scratchy red hue, and his wide eye wavers in its gazing.

“For so long, I spent… thinking, Professor,” he says, “about what it would be like to… have your hand in mine, and to hold you in my arms and feel your warmth. I…”

Too many thoughts rush through Byleth’s mind at once, struggling to coalesce into something coherent and practical.

“So badly, I… I wanted your smile to be for me. To be mine alone.” He grits his teeth. “It was selfish. Ridiculous. How could I possess your joy? To what end? But I thought it still. I wanted to be what made you feel things no on else could, be it… wholeness, or safety, o-or… even — whatever I needed to be, I felt that I was willing, if it meant your happiness would be mine to earn.”

His words hold Byleth’s heart in a vice grip. She thinks back to that battle, and the ensuing celebration. What an odd request, Byleth had thought of Dimitri.

Dimitri’s throat bobs. “These thoughts… I knew they were silly, then. But they were not always idle. Sometimes, I thought… I wondered, if after my time in this academy came to a close, and after I set everything right, whether it was truly so ridiculous that I might take you as my wife.”

_Wife. Wife. Wife._ It echoes in her ear.

“What you told me that evening, long ago - that no man would ever have you - thinking that I might be the man who could… I allowed myself to indulge. I would be king, would I not? So what if jesters of the court thought ill of you being of common blood, or made other complaints of the sort? I could make it work. That is what I thought, at one time. Even when I knew it would not be so - that you would not have me - it lingered still in the back of my mind.”

He shudders. “That you could be mine, that I might have you…” His eye creases. “It was a school boy’s fantasy. That person no longer exists. When you disappeared, it was awful, but — as a ghost, I could think of you rightly. I knew, finally, in my chest as well as my mind, that it could never be, and that I was wrong to ever desire it. And yet… still, I…!”

Byleth exhales, letting go of a painfully-held breath.

Dimitri shakes. “Why are you silent? Say something,” he pleads. “Please! You must speak!”

“…Dimitri,” Byleth says. “Get off of me.”

It’s as if, for a moment, that he does not hear it, gazing at her silently. It might have seemed to Byleth that time had stopped were it not for the exhausted swaying of his head.

Byleth waits. Dimitri closes his mouth. Again, the floor creaks under his weight as he pushes himself off of her and onto his feet.

“… I’ve imposed on you, and acted repugnantly in doing so,” Dimitri says. “I’m nothing but a beast. I cannot ask that you excuse what I’ve done.”

Even as he puts distance between them, Byleth still hears his voice as though it were spoken right into her ear. Intolerable heat radiates through her body.

“I don’t know what to say.” Byleth fingers grasp pointless at her bed sheet. “I was never good with feelings, and these are of the sort I could allow myself to feel. Not just for my students, but as someone like me. It did not seem like something I could wish for.”

Dimitri stares.

“Your self hatred doesn’t please me, Dimitri. And I don’t wish to see you wallowing in guilt,” Byleth says. “If, back then, you… had told me you felt this way — I may indeed have refused you. However… It would not have disgusted me so.”

The air stills. Dimitri’s eye widens, and his face looks stricken by pain. It is not something that he can accept: Byleth realizes that despite the desperation of his confession, Dimitri was only able to will himself to speak under the impression that his wants, then and now, were repulsive, and that she would be repulsed to hear them. He wants the sting of her rejection. To be cleansed by it.

But what she wants is _him_.

After a moment, and with some thought, Byleth picks at the cusp of her shirt and pulls it over her head.

Scars mark her skin from every angle. One curls up the left side of her ribcage, light in color but forming a visible ridge of fibrous tissue. Another marks where she had been near-fatally pierced. Many were too minor for her to recall with exact clarity.

Hard, rigid planes. Her body juts and squares unpleasantly without her corset to smooth her torso into a gentle curve.

“Professor —”

“Please, touch me, Dimitri.”

He crumbles towards her. Step, step - Byleth sucks in a breath, and his clawed hands are on her once more. Curling down her neck, over her shoulders, along her collar. She sighs. It’s leather that she feels in most of his touches, but at the wrong angle steel will scrape and nick her skin.

“… Gh. Blasted things.” Dimitri rips at the belts binding his gauntlets to his arm. The armor and then the leather fall away, revealing the human underneath.

Ripped, mangled flesh cover his hands. Bumps and crags of poorly-healed scars that she feels against her clammy skin as they slide and settle over her body. A tingling warmth lingers wherever he touches, settling deep underneath her skin.

It’s like nothing Byleth’s ever felt. It wasn’t that men have never before wanted her - she was a pretty thing, she knew - but that none have made her felt fit to be wanted. Not so wholly.

“I don’t deserve this,” Dimitri says, voice trembling. “Not with my hands, covered in so much —”

“Sweat and grime?” Byleth interrupts. “Please. I want this. I… I need this.”

He’s at a loss for words, but he doesn’t take her hands off of her. Rather, with the fervor of his touch, so heavy and desperate that Byleth is once more pressed onto her back, and by the pitch of his breath, it seems that he can’t.

Byleth feels a calloused thumb ride along the line of her jaw down to her ear, a languid caress until the soothing warmth of his palms comes to cup her face. A dire quivering makes itself known within her chest, tension and relief winding in equal measure through her body and drawing up her bobbing throat. Dimitri releases a shallow exhale, ghosting over her lips, and his dark eye droops into a slit.

Her entire face tingles as his dry lips meet hers. Byleth returns the kiss, and places her hands on the cold steel of his chest, riding upwards until she finds the sliver of warmth of his neck.

Dimitri gasps, puffs of hot air rolling over her cheeks. Byleth finds herself hard of breath as well. “Professor,” Dimitri calls, and Byleth knows she will no longer be able to hear him use that title without recalling the heat in his voice, “I - I need —”

“Just do it. Whatever you’re thinking.”

The frustrated pull of his lips oozes away in a sigh. His armor creaks, and sections of plate land on the floor with so many thuds and and clangs, plucked from his body like molted scales. When he busies himself with the leather clasps on his back, he finds time to work his way down her throat, mouthing at her skin - she wonders, absently, how he manages it, but realizes that whatever armor he’s collected for himself must necessarily be capable of being equipped without help.

Byleth gasps as Dimitri presses his large body against her, warm and damp through his sweat-soaked shirt. The weight of his embrace is crushing, so tight and desperate, and yet she feels, wrapped in Dimitri’s arms as he laps at her jaw, a wholeness she’s never yet felt.

From motion to action, everything between them is pulled away; Byleth picks at her bra straps until the piece can be thrown to the side, Dimitri’s belt hisses against the fabric of his trousers as he tugs it through his belt loop, and Byleth pushes deep any anxieties that still linger as she pulls down her bottoms.

Byleth feels Dimitri’s gaze roaming her body as he looms, and Byleth does much the same. Dozens of scars, large and small, cross over and mark his heaving chest, curling over his stomach and up his collar and towards his arms. Countless faded, superficial scratches intersecting canyons of maltreated flesh. An urge strikes Byleth to touch him, to trace over his old wounds and imagine how things might have went had Dimitri someone to care for him when he bled, but she hesitates for fear of hurting him.

“You are beautiful, Professor,” Dimitri says, skirting his hand over her hip. His lips form a tender line. “Never has it occurred to so how small and… delicate you truly are.” A sigh passes through his teeth.

Something within Byleth aches. Another something twitches. Dimitri’s words are chaste, but his heady gaze betrays them.

She reaches out and pulls Dimitri down. As the space between them is closed, and their hands find their bodies once more, Byleth rolls her hips into his, and they both groan against each other’s lips. She searches for that delicious friction, pressing her stiffness against his, and Dimitri returns her meager thrusts with his own, grinding hard against her.

With a gasp, Dimitri reaches down between them, and suddenly Byleth feels herself in his grasp. A quivering sigh breaks into a moan when he draws his thumb over Byleth’s head. His grip lingers only for a moment longer before he slides himself intimately against her, skin against skin, making Byleth's fingers writhe under the stimulation.

It’s almost too much, the sensation unfamiliar, but Byleth’s body rises unthinkingly to press and grind against him in his grip. Unspent tension builds and coils through her body, finding gasps of relief in the thrusting of Dimitri’s hips and the pumping of his fist, but it never abates.

“Dimitri, that’s —” Byleth swallows —”good,” she hears herself say, dumbly.

Rocking against her body, Dimitri looks at her — his mouth opens to a sliver, and he looks as if he has something to say, but he instead crushes his lips against her.

It’s awkward, and rough. Everything about what they’re doing here is, but Byleth finds herself caught in its throes. She places a hand over Dimitri’s, follows his motions, and they kiss and gasp and grind and build towards a shared release.

Eventually, the building tension in her groin is brought to a fever pitch - Byleth cries out against Dimitri’s lips as she snaps, waves of pleasure washing over her mind as she her climax draws over her stomach. Dimitri continues on, at some point letting go of her and bringing himself to completion alongside her, groaning at her ear.

The world feels washed out, hazed, and detail occurs to her in lethargic pieces. Byleth gawks sightlessly at the space above her, heart racing and breath ragged. The bed creaks as Dimitri collapses besides her.

She feels his eye on the side of her head. His hands no longer linger on her body, but his heat radiates with hers.

A moment passes. Thoughts no longer skitter about Byleth’s waking mind, thankfully, instead drawn into a languid peace.

“Byleth,” Dimitri murmurs, with a low lilt that tells her everything he means to say. _This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here._

It hurts. Her rational mind tells her that it is not her that brings him shame, but it embitters her still.

She closes her eyes. “Dimitri, will you accompany me for the rest of the night?”

Another pause. Byleth listens to Dimitri's gentle breath. “Why?” he asks, his voice sounding like a plea.

For Byleth, shouldering the burdens of others is something that comes naturally. To listen to her pupils speak, to hear their troubles and to offer advice, or solace, if not a course of action, is a challenge she can manage. It is simple to care for those around her through practical means.

But expressing herself? Making her feelings known? That is something else entirely.

“You made me feel like a woman tonight,” Byleth says. “I would like to remain one until morning.”

Dimitri stills. “You do not need me for that,” he tells her.

Byleth smiles. “I would appreciate it still.”

He caves, shifting to wrap his arms around her, and Byleth reciprocates. Despite his apprehensions, Dimitri’s embrace is tight, holding her close - everything Byleth wishes for.

She does not suppose that things tomorrow will be changed. Dimitri will still be haunted by the specters of the past, and they will drive him forward still on his self-destructive path. But if Dimitri can believe, if only for a moment, that he is worthy of affection - that he is human - then Byleth is glad to have shared this moment with him. His body is warm, and his heart beats soundly against Byleth’s ear.


End file.
